1,481 research outputs found
Protest Adjustments in the Valuation of Watershed Restoration Using Payment Card Data
When using a willingness-to-pay (WTP) format in contingent valuation (CV) to value water-shed restoration, respondents may protest by questioning why they should pay to clean up a pollution problem that someone else created. Using a sample selection interval data model based on Bhat (1994) and Brox, Kumar, and Stollery (2003), we found that the decision to protest and WTP values were correlated. Protest sample selection bias resulted in a 300 percent overestimate of mean WTP per respondent. Using different ad hoc treatments of protesters, protest bias resulted in moderate effects (-10 percent to +14 percent) after controlling for sample selection bias.contingent valuation, protest bias, watershed restoration, sample selection, grouped Tobit, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
Micro and Macro Causes of Violence
The dominant emotion in violence-threatening situations is confrontational tension/fear (ct/f), which causes most violence to abort, or to be carried out inaccurately and incompetently. For violence to be successful, there must be a pathway around the barrier of ct/f. These pathways include: attacking the weak; audience-oriented staged and controlled fair fights; confrontation-avoiding remote violence; confrontation-avoiding by deception; confrontation-avoiding by absorption in technique. Successfully violent persons, on both sides of the law, are those who have developed these skilled interactional techniques. Since successful violence involves dominating the emotional attention space, only a small proportion of persons can belong to the elite which does most of each type of violence. Macro-violence, including victory and defeat in war, and in struggles of paramilitaries and social movements, is shaped by both material resources and social/emotional resources for maintaining violent organizations and forcing their opponents into organizational breakdown. Social and emotional destruction generally precedes physical destruction
Micro and macro sociological causes of violent atrocities
One form of cruelty arises from ritually bounded social groups, where altruistic morality does not extend beyond the boundaries of one’s own enclave, and deliberate public cruelty to enemies is a ritual of group solidarity. Ritualized public displays of cruelty upon helpless victims are most strongly institutionalized in societies which combine hierarchic stratification with strongly ritualized group membership. Cruelty returns in its second form, bureaucratic callousness, through the impersonal structure of modern warfare and the exercise of organizational power.Uma forma de crueldade surge de grupos sociais unidos ritualmente, onde a moralidade altruísta não ultrapassa as fronteiras e limites de cada um, e a deliberada crueldade pública para com os inimigos é um ritual de solidariedade de grupo. Demonstrações públicas ritualizadas de crueldade sobre vítimas indefesas estão fortemente institucionalizadas em sociedades que combinam uma estratificação hierárquica com uma pertença de grupo fortemente ritualizada. A crueldade volta na sua segunda forma, a insensibilidade burocrática, através da estrutura impessoal da guerra moderna e do exercício do poder organizacional.Une forme de cruauté vient de groupes sociaux unis par des rites, où la moralité altruiste ne va pas au-delà des frontières et des limites de chacun et où la cruauté publique délibérée envers les ennemis est un rituel de solidarité du groupe. Les démonstrations publiques ritualisées de cruauté envers des victimes sans défense sont fortement institutionnalisées dans les sociétés qui allient une stratification hiérarchique à une appartenance de groupe fortement ritualisée. La cruauté revient sous sa seconde forme, l’insensibilité bureaucratique, à travers la structure impersonnelle de la guerre moderne et de l’exercice du pouvoir organisationnel.Una forma de crueldad surge de grupos sociales unidos ritualmente, donde la moralidad altruista no supera las fronteras y límites de cada uno, y la deliberada crueldad pública hacia los enemigos es un ritual de solidaridad de grupo. Demostraciones públicas ritualizadas de crueldad sobre víctimas indefensas están fuertemente institucionalizadas en sociedades que combinan una estratificación jerárquica con una pertenencia de grupo fuertemente ritualizada. La crueldad vuelve en su segunda forma, la insensibilidad burocrática, a través de la estructura impersonal de la guerra moderna y del ejercicio del poder organizacional
Various Types of Five-Dimensional Warp Factor and Effective Planck Scale
Based on the assumption that the warp factor of four-dimensional spacetime
and the one of fifth dimension are tied through a parameter , we
consider five-dimensional gravity with a 3-brane coupled to a bulk scalar
field. For arbitrary value of , the form of the warp factor is
implicitly determined by hypergeometric function. Concretely, we show that the
warp factor becomes explicit form for appropriate value of , and study
the relation between four-dimensional effective Planck scale and the brane
tension. This setup allows the possibility of extending the diversity of brane
world.Comment: 11 pages, no figure, minor changes, version to appear in PL
TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUATION OF STREAM RESTORATION USING INTERNET AND MAIL SURVEYS
The economic value of restoring Deckers Creek in Monongalia and Preston Counties of West Virginia was determined from mail, internet and personal interview surveys. Multi-attribute, choice experiments were conducted and nested logit models were estimated to derive the economic values of full restoration for three attributes of this creek: aquatic life, swimming, and scenic quality. The relative economic values of attributes were: aquatic life > scenic quality ~ swimming. These economic values imply that respondents had the highest value for aquatic life when fully restoring Deckers Creek to a sustainable fishery rather than "put and take" fishery that can not sustain a fish population (defined as moderate restoration for aquatic life). The consumer surplus estimates for full restoration of all three attributes ranged between 16 per month per household. Potential stream users (anglers) had the largest consumer surplus gain from restoration while non-angler respondents had the lowest. When the consumer surplus estimates were aggregated up to the entire watershed population, the benefit from restoration of Deckers Creek was estimated to be about $1.9 million annually. This benefit does not account for any economic values from partial stream restoration. Based upon log likelihood tests of the nested logit models, two sub-samples of the survey population (the general population and stream users) were found to be from the same population. Thus, restoration choices by stream users may be representative of the watershed population, although the sample size of stream users was small in this study.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
Colliding Bubble Worlds
We consider a cosmological model in which our Universe is a spherically
symmetric bubble wall in 5-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. We argue that
the bubble on which we live will undergo collisions with other similar bubbles
and estimate the spectrum of such collisions. The collision rate is found to be
independent of the age of our Universe. Collisions with small bubbles provide
an experimental signature of this scenario, while collisions with larger
bubbles would be catastrophic.Comment: 7 pages, no figure
The Randall-Sundrum Scenario with an Extra Warped Dimension
We investigate a scenario with two four-branes embedded in six dimensions.
When the metric is periodic and compact in one of the dimensions parallel to
the branes, the value of the effective cosmological constant for the remaining
five dimensions can assume a variety of values, determined by the dependence of
the metric on the sixth dimension. The picture that emerges resembles the
Randall-Sundrum model but with an extra warped dimension that allows the usual
brane-bulk fine tuning to be satisfied without finely tuning any of the
parameters in the underlying six dimensional theory. Although the action
contains terms with four derivatives of the metric, we show that when the
branes have a finite, natural thickness, such terms have only a small effect on
the Randall-Sundrum structure. The presence of these four derivative terms also
allows a configuration that resembles that produced by a domain wall but which
results from gravity alone.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, requires harvmac and picte
- …